The
C-4040Z
($1099) is the first 4 Megapixel camera from Olympus. They've also
released the D-40, a small 4MP camera, as well as the professional
5 Megapixel E-20N. The 4040Z is essentially a 3040Z with a higher
resolution CCD and a few other features. The 3040Z was one of my
favorite 3 Megapixel cameras -- is the same thing true for the 4040?
Find out in our review...

What's
in the Box?

The
C-4040Z has an average bundle. Inside the box, you'll find:

The
4.0 (effective) Mpixel Olympus C-4040Z camera

16MB
SmartMedia card

2
CR-V3 lithium batteries (non-rechargeable)

Lens
cap w/ strap

Neck
strap

USB
cable

A/V
cable

Remote
control

CD-ROM
featuring Olympus Camedia Master software and drivers

200
page manual (PDF format) and 49 page Basic Manual (printed)

Olympus
has been one of the big "offenders" when it comes to the
stuff included in the box. The 3.3MP C-3040Z had a 16MB SmartMedia
card, and so does the 4.1MP C-4040Z. Canon, on the other hand, includes
a 32MB card with their 4MP camera.

Another
complaint is batteries. Olympus includes two CR-V3 lithium batteries,
which do last for a quite a long time. But they end up in the trash
and eventually our landfills. Do yourself and the environment a
favor and pick up some NiMH rechargeables.

The
manual, while better than those included with older Olympus cameras,
is only available on CD. There's a basic manual which covers, well,
the basics, but if you want to view the whole thing you've got to
load up Acrobat.

Another
minor quibble is the lens cap. While they do include a retaining
strap for it, the darn thing is super-easy to bump off the lens.

Now
on to the good points:

The
thoughtful folks at Olympus have always included the RM-1 remote
with their higher end cameras, including the C-4040Z. You can control
the camera in both record and playback mode (where it's most useful)
with it.

I
covered Olympus' Camedia Master software in a previous
review. Overall, I found it to be better than the average software
that comes bundled with the camera, but you won't be throwing out
your copy of Photoshop. And you get a copy of Photoshop with the
camera, too -- version 5.0LE. I think you'll like it a lot more
than the Camedia Master Software.

The
C-4040Z uses what Olympus calls USB AutoConnect. What that means
is that if you're using a modern Mac or Windows system, you won't
need to install any drivers.

The
4040Z is compatible with Mac OS X.

As
far as accessories go, the C-4040Z can use a whole lot. That includes
external flashes, lenses, and filters. You may need a step-up ring
before you can use some of these lens accessories.

Look
and Feel

I
believe the only change to the body of the C-4040Z over the C-3040Z
is a grip around the lens barrel. I don't find it that helpful in
holding the camera, though (it already was pretty easy to grip).
The camera is a mixture of metal and plastic, and it feels pretty
solid.

The
dimensions of the 4040Z are 4.3 x 3.0 x 2.7 inches, and it weighs
320 grams empty. It's not a big camera, nor is it pocket-sized...
it's right in the middle.

The
flash seen at the top of the photo has a range of 0.8 m  5.6
m at full wide-angle, and 0.2 m  3.8 m at full telephoto.
If you want to use an external flash, there's a 5-pin flash sync
port that you'll see in a minute.

If
there's an item missing from the front of the camera, I'd say it
would be a AF illuminator, a small lamp which aids in low-light
focusing.

On
the back of the camera, little has changed from the C-3040Z. The
1.8" LCD is very good - bright and fluid, and easy to see except
in direct sunlight. Nose and finger smudges may be a problem, though.

The
optical viewfinder is large, and has crosshairs for framing your
images. Diopter correction is also available for those of us with
glasses.

To
the right of that are buttons for:

flash [rec] / delete [play]

macro
& spot metering [rec] / DPOF print marking [play]

Just
right of that is the four-way switch, used for menu navigation and
changing settings in manual mode.

Below
that you'll find buttons for:

Menu
/ OK / Manual Focus

LCD
on/off

AE
Lock / Custom Button [rec] / Image Protect [play]

This
"custom button" is set by default to AE Lock, but you
can change it to any number of other functions via the menu system.

Holding
down the OK button will activate manual focus. The LCD also shows
a bar with the current focus setting.

The
top of the camera is familiar territory as well. The LCD info display
shows the items that you'd expect such as quality and shots remaining.

Just
right of that is the mode wheel, which has the following options:

Off

Program
Mode

A/S/M
Mode (aperture priority, shutter priority, full manual)

Movie
Mode

Playback
Mode

I
would have preferred to have A/S/M as separate choices, rather than
having to use the menu system to change between them. They definitely
have space available on the mode wheel.

Just
above the mode wheel is the zoom control / shutter release button.
The zoom control takes a moment to start moving the lens but once
it's moving, it's smooth and precise.

On
this side of the camera, you can see the various I/O ports. That
includes:

Flash
sync (covered up)

DC
in

A/V
out

USB

If
you'd like to add an external flash, you'll need the FL-40 flash
as well as a flash bracket, both of which are sold by Olympus. You
can use third party flashes, but Olympus warns against it in the
manual.

The
other side of the camera is where you'll find the SmartMedia slot
(shown here with the included 16MB card). The slot is spring-loaded
so the card comes right out. The door and hinge to this compartment
seems a bit flimsy, though. You can use cards as big as they come,
which as of this writing is 128MB.

And
finally, the bottom of the camera. Down here you'll find the battery
compartment as well as a metal tripod mount. One of the CR-V3 batteries
is shown at right.

Using
the Olympus C-4040Z

Record
Mode

The
camera takes approximately 4 seconds to extend the lens and "warm
up" before you can start taking pictures. When you depress
the shutter release halfway, it usually takes less than a second
to lock focus. Depressing it fully will yield a photo almost instantly.
In HQ mode, there's about a 2 second wait before you can take another
shot, which is pretty good for such a high resolution camera.

Here's
a look at the many resolution and quality options on the C-4040Z,
and how many fit on the included 16MB card.

Record
Mode

#
of Pixels

File
Format

#
of photos
on 16MB
card

TIFF

2272
x 1704

TIFF

1

2048
x 1536

1

1600
x 1200

2

1280
x 960

4

1024
x 768

6

640
x 480

16

SHQ

2272
x 1704

JPEG

5

HQ

2272
x 1704

16

SQ-High
Quality

2048
x 1536

7

1600
x 1200

11

1280
x 960

18

1024
x 768

27

640
x 480

66

SQ-Normal
Quality

2048
x 1536

20

1600
x 1200

32

1280
x 960

49

1024
x 768

76

640
x 480

165

As
you can see, there's a whole lot of choices. Do note that full-size
TIFF files take nearly 30 seconds to write to the card, and you
cannot take additional photos during that time. They take just as
long to appear in playback mode.

There
are actually more photo quality options available that I didn't
put in the chart, since they're "interpolated" to higher
resolutions. In SHQ or HQ mode, you can "enlarge" the
images to 3200 x 2400 or 2816 x 2112. Do note that the quality of
the image will be reduced in the process.

The
C-4040Z uses the new menu system that was first seen on the C-700
Ultra Zoom. It's harder to pick up at first, but I think you'll
like it more in the end. You can customize buttons and menu choices
for easy access to your favorite settings.

When
you first press the menu button in record mode, you are presented
with the screen above. The Drive, Quality, and White Balance choices
are customizable, so you could put whatever setting you want in
those spaces. The Mode Menu choice enters the "regular"
menu system at the top level.

Here's
the full menu. There are tabs on the left for Camera, Picture, Card,
and General settings. In the main area you'll actually change the
settings. There's lots of button pushing in this system, and I'm
not sure if I like it that much.

Here's
a look at all the choices available in the menu, and what they mean:

Remote
movies (on/off) - whether to use self-timer/remote control
with movie mode)

Picture
Settings

Quality
(see chart above)

White
balance (auto, sunlight, cloudy, tungsten, fluorescent, manual)

White
balance color - makes color bluer/redder

Sharpness
(hard, normal, soft)

Contrast
(high, normal, low)

Card
Settings

Card
Format

General
Settings

All
Reset (choose which camera settings are stored, or if they're
all reset to defaults)

Beep
(on/off)

Rec
View (shows picture after it's taken - on/off)

File
name (reset, auto)

Pixel
Mapping (on/off)

LCD
brightness

Date/time

Measurement
units (m/ft)

Short
Cut (lets you customize that first menu screen, as described
earlier)

Custom
Button (change the AE Lock button to something else)

Two
new features to talk about here: pixel mapping, and noise reduction.
Pixel mapping is a feature which removes dead or hot pixels from
your CCD. Olympus recommends running this feature once a year. Noise
reduction starts working on exposures slower than 1/2 sec, and it
helps to reduce, you guessed it, the "noise" that appears
in these shots. Do note that it will take twice as long to record
an image with noise reduction turned on.

Most
of the other features mentioned above should be familiar to DCRP
visitors. The sequential shooting mode can take up to 8 shots at
2 frames/sec, in HQ mode. If you want the camera to refocus each
time, you can turn on AF sequential shooting, though the frame rate
is lowered. The manual white balance feature lets you shoot a white
or gray piece of paper to get better white balance in those places
with strange lighting.

Now
onto our photo tests.

The
C-4040Z did a pretty good job with the macro test, but how about
those bad pixels? You'll see them at the base of the figurine, as
well as around the "heart". I guess that's where that
new pixel mapping feature comes in handy!

You
can get as close as 20 cm in macro mode on this camera.

Since
I took the C-4040Z on vacation with me a few weeks ago, I have a
untraditional night shot test for you from Disney's California Adventure.
I can't remember if the noise reduction feature was turned on or
off - I think it was off.

The
Super Bright F1.8 lens really helps out with shots like this!

It
also helped with the excellent photo quality on the C-4040Z. Once
in a while I ran into chromatic aberrations (see this picture),
but overall things were very good. Check out the normal
gallery as well as the special Disneyland
gallery to judge for yourself!

Movie
Mode

The
C-4040Z's movie mode is exactly the same as on the C-3040Z. That
means you can't use the optical zoom during filming, since sound
is recorded and you'd hear the lens mechanism.

The
chart below tells you how many seconds of video you can record:

Quality

Resolution

Secs
on 16MB+ card

HQ

320
x 240

32

SQ

160
x 120

130

Movies
are recorded at 15 frames/second.

Talk
about a rarity on the DCRP - an interesting sample movie! I had
one taken during the drop of Splash Mountain at Disneyland but this
one is better.

The
camera takes about one second to go between photos. It goes straight
to the high res shot too, no low res image is shown. You can zoom
out to 9 thumbnails at once, or zoom in to take a closer look at
your photo. The zoom & scroll mode, as I call it, is pretty
good - you can zoom in as far as 4X, and then move around inside
the picture. The only wish I have here is that the scrolling around
was a bit snappier -- you've got to hold the four-way switch down
for a bit before it really starts moving.

If
you want to get more info about a photo, jump into the menu and
choose Info. While not as detailed as some cameras (e.g. no histogram)
, I think most users will be happy with the information given.

How
Does it Compare?

The
Olympus C-4040Z is a worthy 4 Megapixel successor to the already
excellent C-3040Z. There aren't a whole lot of new features, but
the pixel mapping and noise reduction are two much-needed ones.
Image quality and the feature-set of this camera are first rate.
My only real complaints are about the poor bundle and the new menu
system. If you were to compare the camera with Canon's PowerShot
G2 or Sony's DSC-S85, I'd probably rank the Canon first, and maybe
a tie with the S85 for second place. The Canon has a few more bells
and whistles, and with its CompactFlash Type II slot, it can hold
a whole lot more photos than a SmartMedia card or Memory Stick.
But either way you choose, you win -- so I'd check out all three
and pick your favorite.